The Dark Deadline

Sorry, That's Me Lying Again!
Just trying to be dramatic and shizzle.
     What I mean is, there is a deadline, 8 o'clock actually, because that's when Comic Relief Bake-off takes place, and you know what a pathetic wuss Conrad is when it comes to the Bake-off.  Put the phone on Vibrate, draw the curtains, eject the cat, silence the dog, settle down with a pint of Old Clever Hen - all that.
     On with the Motley!

An Old Clev - OMY GOD!  IT'S CLARISSA THE CANNIBAL COMBAT CHICKEN!
RUN!  RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Eratosthenes
<sigh> I thought to myself this morning when this name popped into my head.  I had a vague recollection of who he was - Greek scholar and astronomer, calculated the diameter of the Earth.

Quite a large value, one feels.

     Of course once at work I Googled for him*, and i was broadly correct, although he was more a polymath than I realised.  He calculated the Earth's circumference, not it's diameter, and invented geography, ending his career as Head Librarian at the Library of Alexandria.  For those of you lacking a grounding in Classical history, the Library at Alexandria was a major gig in the ancient world; for the modern day equivalent you'd need to be King Emperor of All Libraries.
     The real question, as I'm sure you'll acknowledge, is - why on earth did his name pop into my head at the bus stop**?

Royton Library.
Because it's still here and the one at Alexandria isn't

Bus Posters
This brings me on to my next topic, bus posters.  Of course by now in the process of reading all my blog posts, you recognise that Conrad's crazy free-wheeling imagination easily encompasses all of space and time, everything under the sun*** in fact.  It does, however, require a catalyst at times, which the humble, peripatetic and ever-changing^ bus poster provides.
     Usually.
     Allow me to say ENOUGH OF THE MORTDECAI!

More decay.  Close enough.

     Really.  Standing waiting for a 24 that never arrived, I witnessed three 409's pass on the opposite side of the road, all with that Dog Buns!  "Mortdecai" poster on them.  Plus I caught a trailer for it on television.
     Someone is going to a great deal of trouble to promote this film, which instantly makes Conrad suspicious^^, and wary that the promoters want to get lots of people in to see it straight away before word of mouth gets around that it's utter pants.


Rejected Star Trek: The Next Generation Titles
Yes, we move the focus tonight to STTNG, as a bit of a change from dunning The Doctor, and because this obscure cult series is relatively unknown in the UK (but big, big BIG! in Albania^^^) I'll include the original titles to show how terribly clever/smug/addled  I am.

"Scent" ("Descent")

"In Her Face" ("Interface")

"Ham Bit" ("Gambit")

"Home Lard" ("Home Land")

"Pub Rosa" ("Sub Rosa")

"Dark Sage" ("Dark Stage")

"Force of Nat" ("Force of Nature")

"The Pegasause" ("The Pegasus")

     And once again I expect an awed and respectful silence from the readers, with no carping comments.  Okay?

A Little Musical Critique
Today, a slight departure from the norm.  Pictures!  We shall have pictures alongside our trenchant musical analysis.  Today we look at "I Had This Thing" by Royksopp, vocals by that arch miserablist Jamie Irrepressible.  Take it away Jamie!

"I had this thing to call my own"

No kidding!  You can KEEP it!"

"Just one slip and it was gone"

Yeah, that's the thing with alien shapeshifter - tricky rascals to keep tabs on

" A minor flaw and then it fell"

Crashing a spaceship is NOT  "a minor flaw"

"I brought this house down upon myself"

Yes you did, you idiot!  Dynamite and giant naked flames - what could possibly go wrong!

"I don't remember any more what I used to be"

That's because you've been assimilated, mate.  You're one of the Things now.  Soz <gets flamethrower>.

Ooops.
I may have miscalculated. Er - the Fantastic Four's "The Thing"

"No kiddin', bozo.  I got my eye on you."

* During lunchtime.  No illicit web-browsing for Conrad.
** If you've got answers there is folding money in it for you
*** Which is eclipsed by the Moon (Pink Floyd lyric) in a syzygy
^ World in which we live in (Wings lyric)
^^ Well, "Suspicious" is pretty much my default setting.
^^^ Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  I'm lying again!